tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 09 10:11:25 2000
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Re: Deixis and direction
jIjatlh:
> > Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention in this part. I'm not saying that
> > differentiating among the various sorts of header nouns is a bad thing
or
> > baseless. It's a good thing. TKD does it. You need to understand the
> > difference between a locative and a beneficiary, for instance, so that
you
> > can use them correctly (saying /DujvaD/ when you're trying to express
the
> > concept of "location of the ship" or "inside the ship" is
> > obviously wrong).
> > I'm saying that their difference is in their meaning, not their
> > grammatical
> > structure.
jatlh charghwI':
> I'm trying to understand why you seem to consider word order to be the
only
> thing that defines grammatical structure. The form of a word affects more
> than its meaning. It also affects its grammatical function.
I'm saying it because it's a workable interpretation of what's presented in
THE KLINGON DICTIONARY and what's been presented afterwards. Your sentence,
"the form of a word . . ." above is an interpretation of TKD, etc., not a
base from which you can prove or disprove what I'm saying.
This is the core of our difference of opinion in this matter, and I don't
think any amount of hand-waving, arguing, example-showing, or anything else
is going to change our minds.
> I think we actually come very close to agreeing with each other. For
years,
> I've believed that the basic structure of a simple Klingon sentence is:
>
> [Context for the action] [Object] Verb [Subject]
>
> That first section contains time stamps, locatives and all other Type 5
> appended nouns (except for sometimes {-'e'}) and all {-meH} clauses that
> apply to the verb and not the subject noun. This is the reason I
> stylistically prefer to put dependent clauses before the main clause,
since
> these clauses often act as time stamps or otherwise set the context for
the
> action. Meanwhile, it is quite permissible for most dependent clause to
> follow the main clause, instead, so this "context first" model only goes
so
> far.
If you're suggesting that my model is similar to this, then I'd have to
disagree. My model of
<[adverbials] [all header nouns]> [object] verb [subject]
doesn't mention anything about dependent clauses, and it isn't directly
associated with context. Most of the sentence's non-clause context WILL
appear in the "header" nouns, simply because that's where all non-subject,
non-object nouns go, but not because it's context.
> Meanwhile, I do see as much of a grammatical difference between a locative
> and an indirect object as I do between a locative and a direct object. You
> would say that the direct object is part of the grammatical structure that
> is different from "header nouns", while the indirect object is not, and
this
> is where we disagree.
Substitute "object" for "direct object," and this is exactly what I'd say.
> You are saying that OVS word order describes grammar
> while Type 5 noun suffixes merely describe meaning. Different suffixes
imply
> different meaning, not different grammar, according to you, but I don't
> believe it.
batlh maQochta' 'e' wIwuq.
> > (If I did use /DujvaD/ instead of /DujDaq/ for the example
> > above, I'd have gotten the wrong noun, not the wrong grammar.
> > /DujvaD/ is a
> > noun, not a noun plus grammar.)
>
> By this reasoning, no noun is a noun plus grammar, so the subject also is
> lacking any grammatical significance. It is just a matter of meaning. I
> doubt you'd find that acceptable. It is not just position that defines
> grammatical function. It is position or form, and the suffixes constitute
> formal indication of grammatical function.
When lifted from a sentence, a noun which was once a subject does indeed
lack any grammatical significance. But lifting nouns from sentences is not
what we're talking about.
Any noun in the subject position has the syntactic significance of
"subject." Any noun in the "header" noun position has the syntactic
significance of "header noun." "Header noun" is as important a part of the
syntax as is "subject" and "object."
Remember, I'm trying to show what Klingon grammarians themselves appear to
agree with. It certainly isn't definitive, but I think it's right. We are
explicitly told that Klingon grammarians classify words into only three
types: /DIpmey/, /wotmey/, and /chuvmey/. And yet, we also have numbers,
adverbials, and conjunctions. Are these new types of words which weren't
described in TKD? No. They are simply /chuvmey/ which are used in a
particular way.
Likewise, it would appear from TKD that Klingon grammarians recognize five
parts to a Klingon sentence (not including dependent clauses, which are
themselves sentences anyway), though this is not stated explicitly. These
parts are Verb, Subject, Object, Adverbial, and Header Noun. We've always
been fairly clear on the first four of these, but we've always broken up the
fifth one, Header Noun, into sub-groups. TKD does this, but I believe it is
for illustrative purposes only, just as the /chuvmey/ are broken up into
sub-groups for illustrative purposes. They're still just /chuvmey/, and
they're still just Header Nouns. This is my belief.
jatlh charghwI':
> Form describes grammar. Your disinterest in recognizing this doesn't make
it
> invalid.
But your insistence of it doesn't make it true, either. We must necessarily
disagree.
SuStel
Stardate 522.2